


Understanding

by V (deepsix)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-01-13
Updated: 2002-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-04 23:36:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepsix/pseuds/V
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's no escaping some fates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Polite

Draco learned to swear at a young age. He's heard, countless times, his father yell at -- whoever happens by and tests his anger, it doesn't matter. Draco has always thought the words sounded ugly and twisted as they feel from his father's lips: they were merely venomous words without meaning and without purpose. For this, he doesn't curse.

"You're too fucking polite, Malfoy," Goyle says, once, in a rare moment of bravery. Draco gives him a long-suffering look, and none of the Slytherins bring it up again while he's around. It's not as if it's important, what Draco says or doesn't say.


	2. Dirty

When he kisses Harry, Draco is so tense that he can feel the muscles in his arms clenching so tightly that it hurts. He never knows quite what to do with his hands as his mouth meets Harry's, so they remain clenched at his sides until Harry wraps one arm around his waist, tugging him closer. Then Draco manages to lift his hands to grip at Harry's biceps, which is better than digging half-moons into his own palms. He wonders, sometimes, if he leaves marks, but he never makes to look.

Harry tips his head back, and Draco's tongue invades his mouth -- it's always an invasion, like something unwelcome, even though it's not. Or it shouldn't be. At this point, Harry mumbles, "fuck, Malfoy," and Draco doesn't know if it's the impersonal use of his name, or the casual throwing out of 'fuck' that turns him off. He detachedly feels himself flinch, violently enough that his lips fall from Harry's, and instead of trying to reinitiate a kiss, he touches the back of Harry's neck and tilts forward so that their foreheads touch. He feels the tension flooding out of his body.

Harry likes to talk dirty; Draco hates it.


	3. Easy

Draco's vision of love is utterly skewed. All he knows is what he sees, and what he sees is his parents, who ignore him and ignore each other, and seem to spend most of their lives trying to maneuver around the manor in such a way that their paths never intersect. When he's home, Draco sees his mother maybe once a day, and not for lack of trying. He thinks she probably has the house elves on patrol, to alert her when he's around, so she can avoid him. He sees his father less, but he's glad for that: when Draco runs into him, the results are largely unpleasant.

When he was young, before Hogwarts, he used to think his parents were in love. He wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but he knew it was something that parents were supposed to _be_. He remembers arguments, essentially the only times his parents spoke to one another, during which his mother would say things like, "I can't believe you're doing this, Lucius," and, "can't you just think about us for once?" and his father would invariably reply, "I have a _pledge_." Things went quiet after that, and Draco would tiptoe to his room past his father's study, not wanting to get caught. He could always hear his mother wailing disconsolately from some remote room in the manor, and he wondered at the projection. The next morning, he would hear her muttering fervently, "I _hate_ this place," to whomever would listen. 'Whomever' seldom included his father.

This is love, to Draco.

And this is why Harry makes sense, because they have all the makings of what love should be. The tension, the arguments, the friction, the underlying hatred. The only part that's wrong is that Draco doesn't go out of his way to avoid Harry, but rather goes out of his way to run into him. And he tries, he really _tries_ to get Harry to talk to him civilly, without either of them raising their voices or their wands, and he thinks that maybe this isn't love after all. Love is supposed to be some sort of battle, and this is just too easy.


	4. Spectrum

Love and hate sit on either end of a spectrum that wraps around and meets on the other side of indifference.

For as long as Draco can remember, his father has imposed it upon him that he must hate this Boy Who Lived. This boy who is a mockery to them and everything they fight for. And Draco is young and impressionable, so the hatred comes easily. He feels the words roll around his head with surprising ease, and the tight burning in his gut feels as if it's always been there. He doesn't know who Harry Potter is or what he looks like or what he likes or anything about him at all, but Draco knows that he hates him, and none of that matters.

Everything changes the day Draco meets him -- the day he stops being the Boy Who Lived, and starts being the _boy who lives_, who's sitting in a train compartment with unbrushed hair and broken glasses, looking unimpressed by his surroundings. The familiar burn of hate within Draco becomes alien, and yet it's exactly the same as it always has been. He clenches his jaw when he speaks, and he can feel a tang of copper in his mouth; when he turns away from Harry, he doesn't feel angry or spiteful. Rather, it's something akin to disappointment and rejection.

No one warned him about what would happen if he didn't keep his hatred in check, and fell onto the wrong side of the spectrum.


	5. Green

Draco dreams in black and white and grey because dreams are merely shadows of life, and shadows aren't supposed to contain colour. He thinks of things in terms of should and shouldn't, disregarding truths that falsify his beliefs. Mornings, he finds some of the more vapid girls in the Slytherin common room discussing the previous night's romp about the subconscious, usually involving one or more of the fifth and sixth years, each more insipid than the last. He tries to stay in the dorm as long as he can without being late for breakfast, just so he can avoid this.

He dreams with clinical precision: they're sharp things, with plots and dialogue and contrivances and plausible events, things that could actually happen. They aren't half-formed ideas that shift entirely when prodded, because he gets enough of that in the waking world, though the occasional one slips through.

He isn't aware that they're happening until moments before he wakes up, and instead of muted tones of grey beneath his eyelids, there are brilliant spots of green. He feels disembodied and dizzy and there are sharp pricks along his temples, and it's not until the flood of colour is overwhelming that he wakes up. His pyjamas cling to the line of perspiration down his spine, his hands are fisted damply in his blankets. He sits up and his hips hurt; he doesn't need to trace a shaking hand over his thigh to know that his pants are damp, too.

He reaches blearily for his wand and whispers fervent drying spells. Even when he lies down again, calmed, he can't sleep for the green flitting just beyond his reach. In daylight, he finds it hard to look at Harry, because now Draco can't be sure if he falls under monochrome or colour.


	6. Hate

Harry thinks that the darkness makes them somehow less real. Sneaking around the castle in the dark gives what they do an illicit thrill, a feeling that they shouldn't be doing it. Harry does it because it gives him a taste of darkness without actually being _dark_. It's a chance to commit the unforgivable, the ultimate sin -- that's why Harry does it.

Draco does it because it's second nature, and he hates that Harry can trivialize that for him. It turns out that Draco hates a lot of things.

Harry doesn't follow any specific pattern for bringing _them_ up, so Draco can't anticipate it. It's a stupid thing to think, when touch is electric and frenetic and desperate, to think that Draco doesn't even _like_ him; he does, he says he does, and maybe he doesn't show that he does, but it should be enough. Draco hates that it's not.

It's easier in the light, when Draco can sneer when he passes Harry in the corridors, and that's what Harry expects. Draco would do the same any other time, but it gets crossed and misinterpreted, so he needs to be on his guard. He hates that he needs to pretend in the dark, where he should be most comfortable, where he should be free.

He hates himself for letting that happen.


	7. Epiphany

Draco has always been at a disadvantage, always one step behind, one heartbeat too slow. He never fully understands until Harry's moved on and everything is inconsequential. It's frustrating, running a race he can never win, and disheartening, constantly trying to catch up.

Trysts happen in dirty, forgotten storage rooms, illuminated only by the glow at the end of their wands. The light doesn't improve the rooms any, serving only to highlight the grimy walls and dust-caked storage bins, and to cast eerie shadows across the stone floor. But Harry makes it beautiful, with his body sleek against Draco's back, his mouth hot on Draco's shoulder blades, his palms like silk on Draco's stomach. Draco has to brace himself, elbows locked to keep distance from the walls, and tilts his head back on Harry's narrow chest. He lets his vulnerability come through in these moments, hoping that if he opens himself to Harry, he'll finally understand.

Harry is rough with him, and his breath is ragged against Draco's skin, and sometimes he's just cruel, but he's never, before now, breathed, "I hate you," and forced his mouth against Draco's. Draco twists, and Harry's nails rake up his back, and Draco makes small, desperate noises in the back of his throat. Harry's teeth are sharp and grating against Draco's lips, and Draco is sure blood is being drawn, and that's when he understands.

He touches Harry's hip, delicately, with a dirt-covered hand. Into Harry's mouth he murmurs, "I love you," but it sounds a lot more like, "fuck you," and he gets it, he really fucking _gets it_ that he's never had a choice in any of this.


End file.
